Development Updates

Sondra Lomax
Executive Director and Assistant Dean for Development

As we move into the new academic year with less threat from COVID-19, the College of Fine Arts continues to raise the bar on excellence in 21^st century arts education. To make this possible, we have increased momentum in our fundraising operation with a boost from the public launch of the UT-wide “What Starts Here” capital campaign in March 2022 and with important help from members of our Advisory Council.

For academic year 2021-2022, the College of Fine Arts received over $44.8 million in gifts and pledges. This accomplishment is the result of dedicated efforts by Advisory Council members, chairs and directors, development staff, alumni, and friends. To each of you, I extend my heartfelt thanks on behalf of the College of Fine Arts and its students.

Most of this $44.8 million is restricted, meaning that funds are designated to specific endowments or purposes. Some are planned gifts that will provide us with transformational funding in the future. But all of these gifts share a common bond: they help the college in its pursuit of excellence so that we can continue to provide the best arts education and creative research opportunities for our students.

Last year’s success was a milestone, heralding the second-largest fundraising total in the history of the college. The largest fundraising year was over $55 million in 2008 with the generous naming gift for the music school by Ernest and Sarah Butler.

This year’s fundraising is off to a great start: Since September 1, 2022, the college has raised over $14.9 million! Our goal for this fiscal year is $15 million, and we are well on our way to exceeding that goal. With your help, we will make it another banner year!

Continue Reading Fall 2022 Development Report

Sondra Lomax
Executive Director and Assistant Dean for Development

As we move into the new academic year and under new leadership, the College of Fine Arts continues to raise the bar on excellence in 21^st century arts education. To make this possible, we have maintained a robust fundraising operation during the pandemic with great help from members of our Advisory Council.

For academic year 2020-2021, the College of Fine Arts received over $12 million in gifts and pledges. This accomplishment is the result of dedicated efforts by Advisory Council members, chairs and directors, development staff, alumni, and friends. To each of you, I extend my heartfelt thanks on behalf of the College of Fine Arts students, faculty, and staff.

Most of this $12 million is restricted, meaning that funds are designated to specific endowments or purposes. Some are planned gifts that will provide us with transformational funding in the future. But all of these gifts share a common bond: they help the college in its pursuit of excellence so that we can continue to provide the best arts education and creative research opportunities for our students.

And this year’s fundraising is off to a great start: Since September 1, 2021, the college has raised over $9.3 million! Our goal for this fiscal year is $15 million, and we are well on our way to achieving, if not, exceeding that goal. With your help, we will make it a banner year!

Continue Reading Fall 2021 Development Report

Sondra Lomax
Executive Director and Assistant Dean for Development

Despite the pandemic, we had a great fundraising year for the college. We raised over $17 million, surpassing our annual goal of $15 million.  Now, for our new members and guests today, I need to explain that this is not $17M in spendable cash, but primarily a combination of various endowment funds dedicated to specific purposes, along with future estate gifts that people have placed in their wills.

Many of these gifts support our Top COFA funding priorities:

• Facilities (upgrades, expansion, renovation)
• Student support (undergrad scholarships; fellowships for grad students)
• College-to-career initiatives (internship funding, UTNY,–our satellite campus in Manhattan, and UTLA, our residential program in Los Angeles)
• Faculty endowment support (chairs, professorships, fellowships)
• Program endowments (aka “excellence funds”) which are unrestricted support for specific departmental programs and initiatives.

Now it takes a village to raise to these types of resources, and in addition to the fundraising that Doug and I undertake, we have a whole team of gift officers who work with our donors around the state and beyond. These professionals are donor advisors who can work with you to match your philanthropic goals and interests with various areas of our college. They can also explain the multiple ways in which gifts to our college may be realized.  I hope you will get to know them, and welcome them when they reach out.

Thanks to the advocacy and support of our Advisory Council and Parents Council, last year was highly successful for our fundraising, and we look forward to our continued work with you during this new academic year.  Besides helping us to network with individuals, foundations and corporations, It is our sincere hope that each and every one of you will find a program or initiative in which to become engaged and of course, that you will be motivated towards an investment in the UT College of Fine Arts. The future is bright for COFA, and we are glad you are here to share in its accomplishments and to help ensure its continued success.

Dear Friends,

I hope you are staying safe and well during these unprecedented and challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since our campus was closed on March 13th, the COFA development team has been working hard—albeit from our homes—to continue reaching out to our alumni and friends to check on their well-being and to continue conversations regarding their philanthropy to support our academic mission.

Due to the amazing loyalty and dedication of the Longhorn Nation and our COFA friends, we have been able to help the university raise over $1.3 million for UT’s Student Emergency Fund. In addition, fundraising for the college has increased by $500,000 during the past two months. We have surpassed our fundraising goal of $15 million for this fiscal year and are on track for even more donations. For all these gifts, we are extremely grateful.

Continue Reading Spring 2020 Update from Sondra Lomax

Dear Friends,

This past September, we held one of our best Advisory Council fall meetings to date! Thank you to all who were able to attend and enjoyed the presentations by Dean Doug Dempster, our outstanding faculty, and our talented students.

Since that meeting, the development officers have been busy meeting with council members, alumni, and friends across the country, and their hard work has paid off. I am pleased to announce that as of December 6th, the College of Fine Arts has raised over $8.7 million to support our students, faculty, programs, and facilities. We are well on our way towards our goal of $15 million for 2019-2020, and we could not do it without the support of YOU as Advisory Council members!

Continue Reading Winter 2019 Update from Sondra Lomax

Dear Friends,

It was great to see so many of you at our regional spring meetings in San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and Houston. Special thanks again to our hosts: Emma and Toby Calvert, Joan Hudson Clark, Laura and Chris Shoppa, Joe Batson, and Traci and John Young.

Also, don’t forget to mark your calendar for the fall meeting on Friday, September 20 at the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center. Last year’s meeting was one of our best ever, and we are hoping to top it in 2019. We look forward to sharing the full agenda with you in August.

As we close out the spring semester, there is much to celebrate in the College of Fine Arts. We could not be more grateful to Meredith and Cornelia Long of Houston for donating $1 million to their Meredith and Cornelia Long Internship Fund. Since establishing the fund in 2015, the Longs have helped an increasing number of students by offsetting the costs associated with unpaid internships. This additional gift will expand its reach even further to help students find college-to-career success.

Continue Reading Summer 2019 Update from Sondra Lomax

Dear Friends,

What a great gathering on campus in October for our fall council meeting!  My appreciation to all who attended. Since that meeting, the development officers have been traveling around the state to meet with members individually to ask how you might wish to become involved with our college’s campaign initiatives. Please welcome them when they reach out. Lots of exciting projects happening college-wide!

As Doug Dempster stated at the meeting, “The time is NOW to address our facilities’ needs.” As you learned, COFA student enrollment has increased by 20 percent over the past two years, and we are expecting a 40 percent increase by 2021. Much of this growth is in disciplines that did not exist 50 years ago when our 20th century facilities were built.

Continue Reading Fall 2018 Update from Sondra Lomax

Dear Friends,

What a busy spring! The past few months have flown by with non-stop activity on campus, our ongoing regional Advisory Council meetings, and the hire of new development team members. Doug and I always enjoy traveling around the state to visit with you, and I want to extend my appreciation again to everyone who hosted or attended the regional meetings.

And now for some exciting news:  I am happy to report that this year will be the most successful fundraising year for the College of Fine Arts since Ernest and Sarah Butler made their landmark $55 million gift to name the School of Music in 2008.

Continue Reading Spring 2018 Update from Sondra Lomax

Dear Friends,

One of our biggest changes this past year is an internal one: the reorganization of the college’s development operations. We now share resources and staffing with the University Development Office and have hired several new team members.

First, many of you already know Andrew West from his previous position as Director of Development for the Butler School of Music. He will now be the college’s new Director of Principal Gifts. In this well-deserved promotion, Andrew will be focusing on the highest level of gifts across the college while working closely with Doug and me, plus the Chairs and Directors, on COFA’s top fundraising priorities. Andrew has more than 10 years of fundraising experience, along with an impressive track record for his recent successes with the Butler School and the Longhorn Band.

We also have two new gift officers who have recently joined our team, Marcela DeFaria and Alex Scull. Please read more about them below. Our appreciation to Vice President for Development Scott Rabenold for his support in this expansion, which will allow us to greatly increase our fundraising for the benefit of the college and the university.

Continue Reading Winter 2017 Update from Sondra Lomax

Dear Friends,

How wonderful to see so many of you at the spring regional meetings around the state! Special thanks again to our hosts: Margaret Gunn in San Antonio, Ginger Head Gearheart in Fort Worth, Vicki Bartholow in Dallas, Mimi Smith in Austin, and Melissa Ison in Houston. We look forward to these small, more intimate gatherings every year, as they give us an opportunity for more personal and in-depth conversations regarding current affairs in the College of Fine Arts.

I also want to share a university-wide change that will impact the college. Under the recommendation of our new Vice President for Development, Scott Rabenold, the UT Austin Development Board recently approved new endowment levels for the 2017-2018 fiscal year.

Continue Reading Summer 2017 Update from Sondra Lomax